Neither Do I condemn you

[Ebn Barbara]

This week I read a story, which was very significant and had a deep meaning, and while I was reading this story, the Holy Spirit spoke to me, and led me to write this meditation.

The story is about a man and his wife who were standing at their window looking at their neighbors’ house, and the wife was looking at some clothes that her neighbor was hanging to dry on the balcony after she washed them, and she said to her husband: When will my neighbor learn to clean her clothes when she washes them, look at them how dirty they are..
And the next day the same scene repeated again, and she said to her husband: I wish someone would teach her how to wash her clothes, or makes her buy a better laundry detergent than the one she’s using, look how dirty their clothes are.
And after two days, the wife stood at the same place, and said to her husband: How strange, look how clean these clothes are. Who taught her to clean well, or to change the detergent she’s using? Is it you?
And her husband answered calmly: No, I did not do that, but what I did was to clean the glass of the window behind which we stand and look at our neighbors’ house.. and when the glass became clean, it became possible for you to see that the clothes were clean, for the problem was not in the clothes, but in the dirty glass through which you were looking..

Beloved: How significant is this story which carries deep meanings and spiritual lessons that are beneficial to us..
And how do we need to change our view of many things.. not our view as one of the five body senses..
But our spiritual view to various matters..
For how many matters did we judge or take a hard or negative stand from..
Because the glass we were looking through was dirty!!!

The apostle John gives us two different views for a single event, let us examine this together:
“Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they said to Him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do you say?’ This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear. So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, ‘He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.’ And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, ‘Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.’” (John 8:3-10).



The story of the Lord with the Pharisees, needs thousands of pages to meditate on..
He came to clean the glass through which people are looking at other people and different matters.. but they refused..
He came to clean their inner eyes and their hearts from the blackness, the darkness and the hardness through which they were looking at things and were giving their cruel judgments..

This woman fell into their hands, and their look at her was that she was adulterous and needed to be stoned to death..
They saw her dirty, just as this wife saw that her neighbor’s clothes were dirty..

And what the Lord did with those people, was to let them realize that the glass they were looking through is dirty..
Then they went out one by one.. none of them stayed.. and no one was able to condemn her.. this is proven by the story..
Also the look of the Lord to this woman was not like the Pharisees’.. He didn’t declare her innocent but at the same time He didn’t condemn her..

The reason is that He was merciful, loving the sinners.. He knew that they were guilty.. but He looked at them through what He came to do for them.. He was looking at them through His precious blood that will cover them when they repent and accept Him, thus He saw them clean.. The glass He was looking through was luminous and shining..
This is why He said to the woman: Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.

Please, do not understand me wrong..
The Lord will never like sin, rather He strongly hates it.. but at the same time the Lord will never hate the sinner, He will always have mercy and will always give a lot of chances to repent and come to Him..

The Song of Songs who is written in a symbolic language about the relationship between the Lord and the church, says:
“I am dark, but lovely…” (Song of Songs 1:5).
We are all dark because of the sins we commit everyday.. but the Father looks at us through the glass of mercy and His son’s precious blood that covers us, and He sees us faultless, blameless, righteous, pure…
This is what I want to get to each one of you today: that we look firstly to ourselves through the glass through which the Lord looks, and secondly to our brothers and sisters, and to others who do not know the Lord yet..
And when we do this, so many things will change.. and many previous judgments we made will change..

The Lord said to the Pharisees:
“… ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.’ ” (Matthew 9:12-13).
The Lord wants mercy, beloved, and not sacrifice, regardless if it is according to its meaning in the old testament or the new..
The bible reported to us many confrontations that happened between the Lord and the Pharisees..
And the Lord’s reproach to them was severe, because they were looking through a dirty glass, and were seeing the people dirty..
Their hearts were like stone, hard, and their motives were not pleasing to God, rather they were selfish motives centered on themselves and on their personal glory and not the Lord’s glory..
Imagine with me that they were not able to rejoice with a blind man who was seeing, or with a paralytic who walked, or with a dead man who was resurrected… if it happened on a Saturday.. abiding by traditions set by men and not by the Lord..
And this is what the word certifies:
“Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition. Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you saying: ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ” (Matthew 15:6-9).

Do we act like the Pharisees, whether a few or a lot of times, in judging others? Or judging ourselves?
This is a question I leave with each one of you today, and ask you to answer it under the presence of the Holy Spirit.

The word of God says:
“The merciful man does good for his own soul, But he who is cruel troubles his own flesh.” (Proverbs 11:17).
This is what I previously mentioned, I want to elaborate on it, regarding the importance of the subject..
May be you are very hard on yourself like the Pharisees.. and the result will be that you will hurt yourself..
And because you are hard with yourself, you are also hard with others..
And if you are not merciful with yourself, how can you be merciful with others?

You certainly have experienced mercy, when you came to the Lord repenting of your sins, and decided to give Him your life.. so the Lord forgave you on the account of His precious blood, and He accepted you just as you are..
But today you came back to live under the law and its cruel regulations, you deal harshly with yourself and you judge yourself, and today you are hurting yourself without realizing it, and after that you will hurt others..
Instead of this you should accept yourself the way you are, you know that you are black but at the same time you know that you are lovely, because of the Lord’s blood, and His abounding mercy that forgives all your sins..
So rather than whipping and torturing yourself, come to the Lord with your problems, imperfections, sins and bondages, and let Him treat them, allow Him to deliver you, and to show you how much He loves you.. He will make you see the size and ugliness of the sins you are committing, but He will also make you realize how much He loves you despite all this, and He will forgive all your sins, and you will learn to be merciful to others, to accept them and forgive them just as the Lord forgave you..
To do something else than this will be destructive to you and to others..

You are living in the kingdom of light, the kingdom of the abounding mercy, but you are applying the regulations of the law in a kingdom that doesn’t recognize them and neither accepts them, and the result is that you will enter prison..
For if you try to apply the Lebanese law in a European country, and by this violating the laws of the country, the police will put you in jail, and you will be punished..
And this is what happens in the Lord’s kingdom, if you try to live by the regulations of the law, and violates the law of mercy, you will give Satan the chance to take you captive and put you in the prison of the torture of the soul and the body, because as we said:
The merciful man do good to his own soul, but he who is cruel troubles his own flesh.

For the people who brought the adulterous woman to the Lord, looked at her through their dirty glass, and saw her dirty..
And when the Lord asked that the one who didn’t commit any sin be the first to stone her, they all went away, because they looked at themselves through the same dirty glass..
The woman stayed and received the Lord’s mercy, His acceptance and His forgiveness..
As for them, they didn’t stay and didn’t get what the woman received!!!

May be you’ve lost the mercy toward yourself, and this made you lose it also toward others..
But today the Lord wants to visit you, encourage you, wipe your tears, and make you hear again, that He doesn’t condemn you, but He loves you with an unconditional love, and He wants to tell you:
Go in peace, and leave your burdens, loads, and hardness on yourself at My feet..
He wants to clean the glass through which you are looking for you to see things clearly..
For you to see how you are loved by the Lord with all your flaws and weaknesses..
For you to see how the others are loved by the Lord with all their flaws and weaknesses..
And you will know how to have mercy on yourself and on others.. you will ask the Lord to give you His eyes to see through them yourself and others..
And ask Him to change your heart if it is hardened, and give you a heart of flesh, the Lord’s own heart, which is full of compassion, mercy and grace..

Come wholly to Him today, and let Him do a new thing with you, let Him restore to you the joy, the rest, and the peace that perhaps you’ve lost a long time ago, and give you back the joy of your salvation, and sow compassion within you, so that you will enjoy life again and hurry and tell others what the Lord did to you.

[بنت معلم الاجيال]

Thank you

very beautiful